This Was Not Planned So It Cannot Be Happening

April 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Energy, Energy Turnaround, Environment, Fracking, Gas, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Greens, Shale Gas, Technology Leave a comment

Or will not be happening, I should say.

As you know, Germany is green. And Germans are greener than green. Why, Germans are so green that Jamaicans want to roll them up and smoke them.

And Germans also like sticking to “the plan,” too (think Stalingrad). So they do not, I repeat do not appreciate it when, as in this case, their ambitious environmental plans get disturbed by unforseen technological developments that were not considered in the original plan and therefore start turning the whole Schlamassel (mess) into a really, really big and annoying, well, Schlamassel (think Stalingrad again).

It goes like this: “Ambitious environmental goals are far less meaningful if the economy withers in achieving them.” So when something really tempting comes along like shale gas drilling (hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”), a technology that could give Germany access to enough reserves to feed natural gas demand for 20 years, then that gets not-so-thoroughly-green people (yes, there still are a few specimens left) to thinking, plan or not.

So there we have it. And that’s the end of it (ask any German Green Shirt). Fracking can’t happen here. It is ideologically inadmissable. Fracking is something that those crazy Americans and their evil multi-national oil companies do, not us (multi-national oil companies are always American, by the way – don’t ask). Nope, fracking can never happen here. Never in a million years. Not this year anyway.

“We are sitting on Swiss cheese. The risks are just too high.”

Where’s The Enlightenment When You Need It?

April 24, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Jewish Museum Berlin, Jews, Moses Mendelssohn, Quotas, Regulation, Satire, Taxation, The Enlightenment, The Green Shirts 4 Comments

This is German regulation madness at its best. Or, to be fair, Berliner Green Shirt regulation madness at its best.

The city district council of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (the Greens) is currently causing not just a little bewilderment by refusing to name the square in front of Berlin’s Jewish Museum after Moses Mendelssohn, the German Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. No, not because they’re anti-Semites (at least not openly). It’s because Mendelssohn was not a woman.

You see, the district parliament decided back in 2005 (Greens and SPD) that 50 percent of the district’s streets and squares had to be named after women. Until that goal is reached, no new streets or squares will be allowed to be named after men, except in exceptional cases. Which this one isn’t, I guess.

This is about as small-minded as you can get, of course, and it fits perfectly with mainstream Green ideology, I find, in that nothing the Greens ever do or say can ever be allowed to be labelled as being small-minded or petit bourgeois in any way. But of course practically everything they do, well, is.

Die kleingeistige Posse spielt vor der Tür des weltweit bekannten Jüdischen Museums. Die Hauptakteure hocken in der mit Abstand stärksten Fraktion des Bezirks: Es sind die Grünen. Sie schämen sich nicht, „das leider falsche Geschlecht“ Mendelssohns in einem Satz mit dem „Projekt Unisextoiletten“ abzuhandeln.

PS: Speaking of Berlin city government in action: Oh boy! The new tourist tax is here! The new tourist tax is here!

Justin Bieber To Spank His Monkey

April 23, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Customs, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Immigration, Justin Bieber, Leave It to Beaver, Mally the Monkey, Munich, Satire 1 Comment

For not having any papers on him after landing in Munich in March. Or he sure would like to spank him now, I bet.

The popular god-awful and astoundingly annoying suckling superstar clearly had no idea that German customs authorities don’t cut slack for anybody, not even for monkeys – or a guy who’s last name means “beaver” in German.

His dumbass animal of a monkey “Mally” is still under animal shelter arrest and won’t be going anywhere until Bieber or an actual grownup get in touch with the German customs authorities directly (that is the custom here) and he’s running out of time fast.

This gives Leave It to Beaver a whole new meaning, if you ask me. Whether he spanks his monkey or not.

“Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver.”

Ausgeliefert

April 15, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, ARD, Berlin, Distortion, Documentaries, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hype, Journalism, Propaganda, Public-Service Broadcasters, Satire, State-Run TV 9 Comments

As in being at the mercy of.

Everbody agrees that big American hi-tech companies are fundamentally evil, right? Well they do here in Germany. In Germany’s state-run media, I should say (they actually call these channels “public-service broadcasters” here because that sounds better).

Anyways, the latest greatest twist to the anti-Google/Facebook/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon agitpop over at the ARD is breaking new ground (or maybe it isn’t) by unabashedly inventing witnesses and working/living conditions in one of Amazon’s German plants in a scarry documentary about that horrible company called Ausgeliefert – and all of this while using the generous funding provided by the compulsory charge every German household has to pay to support objective “public-service broadcasters” like these, of course.

Germans have to pay this charge now whether they even own a television or not, by the way. Hmmm. The ARD called their documentary Ausgeliefert (as in being at the mercy of Amazon), and that’s something every German knows about personally already. Being at the mercy of the ARD like they are, I mean.

Dort, gezeigt wurde das in einer angeblichen E-Mail, würden Menschen “abgefüttert wie die Schweine”, hieß es. Eine Behauptung, der CoCo von Anfang an widersprochen hat und nun vor Gericht zunächst Recht bekam. Der besagte Speiseraum existiere gar nicht, so das Unternehmen: “Das ist schlicht eine Erfindung der ARD-Journalisten, gegen die wir auch juristisch vorgehen.”

Der HR hat bereits vor der Gerichtsentscheidung bestätigt und eingestanden, dass der strittige Screenshot der E-Mail “fingiert” gewesen sei. Zudem musste der Hessische Rundfunk über seine Rechtsabteilung zugeben, dass auch eine im Film porträtierte polnische Leiharbeiterin namens Agnieszka Lewandowska “niemals als Leiharbeiterin bei Amazon beschäftigt war.”

German Government’s Concern About NGO Raids Has Russians Shaking In Their Fur-Lined Boots

March 27, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Democracy, Dissidents, Freedom, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NGOs, Russia, Satire, Spies Leave a comment

After German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle himself summoned a Russian envoy to “express the German government’s concern” about a series of raids on German NGOs in Russia, the envoy broke down in tears of regret, fell to his knees, grovelled around for a bit and then promised that his country would never ever ever do anything bad like that again.

The Russian offices of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung have both come under intense scrutiny recently by Russian authorities seeking “foreign agents” who support domestic dissidents because, well, that’s what Russian authorities do. But all of this will come to a screeching halt now, I guess.

“Hampering the activity of German foundations could inflict lasting damage on bilateral relations.”

Empörungsprofis

March 5, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anarchy, Berlin, Demonstrations, East Side Gallery, Gentrification, Humor, Protest, Satire, The Berlin Wall 1 Comment

Outrage professionals.

A farce, this “protest movement” at the East Side Gallery. And a well-written article, this is. But sorry, I don’t have the time or the energy to translate it today.

Wo war eigentlich Claudia Roth?

Remove 20 Meters?

March 1, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, History, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Protest, Satire, The Berlin Wall 3 Comments

Of a 1.3-kilometer stretch of the Berlin Wall?

And you can still find 300 people who care?

The real issue: This is being done to build a road to a new luxury condominium so, well, the yuppie scum must be behind it again.

“Does culture no longer have any value?”

Big Phasehout Payout On The Way

February 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Berlin, Courts, Energy Turnaround, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Law, Nuclear energy, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

A three-month closure imposed by the government on RWE’s Biblis A and B reactors as an immediate response to the Fukushima accident was illegal, a German court has ruled.

The administrative court for the German state of Hesse has found the state ministry of the environment acted illegally on 18 March 2011 when it issued an order for the immediate closure of the Biblis units.

This decision, as well as a tax on nuclear fuel levied in anticipation of continued operation of nuclear plants before the phaseout decision, have cost German nuclear operators dear: RWE estimated that the phase-out cost the company over €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2011 alone.

Any claims for damages against the state of Hesse would be decided in subsequent civil court proceedings.

Angry Radical Femen Women Showing Their Feminist Thingies All Over The Place These Days

February 26, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Helplessness, High Art, Hotness, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Boobs, Demonstrations, Femen, Feminism, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Nudity, Protest, Satire, Sex, Topless, Women 3 Comments

Even in Berlin, of all places. And I, for one, find it shocking and disgraceful.

But on the other hand… If this is the only way to unite young women in their striving for the democratic principles of social awareness, political activism and social development, who am I to stand in their way?

„Wir als Frauen erobern die Hoheit über unsere Körper zurück und setzen sie für politische Ziele ein.“

If It Wasn’t For Fake Names I wouldn’t Have No Names At All

February 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Big Brother, Big Government, Bureaucracy, Court Rulings, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Internet, Law, Privacy, Satire Leave a comment

Fake Germans everywhere are distraught about a legal battle Facebook ITSELF won yesterday in Germany affirming that users in that country must register on the website with their real names.

This is a terrible blow to German privacy in general and the German Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in particular because, well, this leaves the door wide open for companies like Facebook “to determine their own policies about anonymity within the governing law” when offering their services and, uh, that is just plain unacceptable or something because, well, then people like the Data Protection Commissioner could soon be out of work.

Die Entscheidungen sind mehr als verblüffend.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Habeas Corpus